Kohli joins Ponting in second on centuries list

INDIAN skipper Virat Kohli has drawn level with Australian great Ricky Ponting with the pair now second on the list of One-Day International century makers on 30.

Kohli notched uop his latest ton to lead his team to a 5-0 series sweep of Sri Lanka in Colombo.

Only Indian superstar Sachin Tendulkar is above the pair on the all-time list of ODI hundreds with 49.

Remarkably, Kohli has reached 30 centuries in just 186 innings - compared to the 349 it took for Ponting, or 267 it took for Tendulkar.

Tendulkar made 49 centuries in 452 innings, giving Kohli an incredible conversion rate of one century every 6.2 innings compared to Sachin's 9.2 or Ponting's 12.1 innings (30 centuries from 365 innings) for each time he reached three figures.

In the final game of the series in Sri Lanka, the home team batted first but collapsed from 4-185 in the final 11 overs as they lost six wickets for 53 runs.

Indian paceman Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who was named man of the match, collected his maiden ODI five-wicket haul to help limit the hosts to 238.

After India fell to 2-29, Kohli scored 110 off 116 balls and combined with Kedar Jadhav, who scored 63 off 73 balls, to take another win.

Kohli now has an unbelievable average of 281 from successful ODI chases in 2017, hitting four centuries and four half-centuries in India's 10 successful chases this year.

"It's quite amazing to have won the series 5-0. We always thought the shorter format is going to be much more challenging,” the Indian skipper said.

"The youngsters and the spunk on the field has worked for us. All round, it's been a complete series for us. We've been playing some good cricket.”

Kohli also passed 1000 ODI runs for the year - his fifth time doing so, a mark which has only been bettered by Tendulkar (seven times) and Sourav Ganguly, Kumar Sangakkara and Ponting (all six times).